


Out of the darkness, into the light

by vogue91



Series: Playlist Challenge [19]
Category: Captain America (Movies), The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Angst, Canonical Character Death, Denial of Feelings, Drabble Collection, Dreams vs. Reality, F/M, Family Feels, Fights, Hope, M/M, Self-Hatred, Self-Sacrifice, Spoilers
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-09
Updated: 2019-05-09
Packaged: 2020-02-28 22:53:37
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,979
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18765949
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/vogue91/pseuds/vogue91
Summary: Various drabbles depicting characters from the Avengers. Spoilers up to Infinity War.





	Out of the darkness, into the light

**Title:** Out of the darkness, into the light

 **Characters:** Steve Rogers, Tony Stark, Natasha Romanov, Gamora, Clint Barton, Bruce Banner, Bucky Barnes, Stephen Strange, Peter Parker

 **Pairings:** Steve Rogers/Bucky Barnes, Tony Stark/Steve Rogers, Bruce Banner/Natasha Romanov, Peter Quill/Gamora, Clint Barton/Laura Barton

 **Rating:** PG

**Prompt:[321\. Cloak of darkness](http://vogue91.blogspot.com/2018/05/500themes.html)**

**Warnings:** Spoilers for Captain America – The Winter Soldier, The Avengers – Age of Ultron, Captain America – Civil War, The Avengers – Endgame

 

  1. **One of us – Abba _(Steve Rogers)_**



There was some things which were impossible to forget.

Steve knew his past was already a lot to deal with, without having to add to that the memories he had collected since he had woken up.

New York. The whole working with S.H.I.E.L.D. And...

There was a particular parenthesis he wished he could’ve extracted from his mind, a cloak of darkness over his whole life which at times like these forbade him from being serene.

Careful not to make a sound, he turned around and looked at him.

Bucky always had that frown on his face when he slept, sign that his dreams were even more troubled his lover’s.

Steve had forgotten him, even though he remembered all too well how hard it had first been to face him.

With his memory back and his mind almost whole again, Bucky Barnes still was never going to be the one he had been in the past, and Steve knew that.

But he was going to learn to live with it.

After all, he wasn’t the same either.

 

  1. **Hollywood – Madonna _(Tony Stark)_**



Perhaps he needed a reality check.

Perhaps he needed to get a good look back to his life, analyse what had gone wrong among the good things and try to get it all straight, trying to start living a life again, one where he didn’t risk to level the Earth every other Tuesday.

Perhaps the Captain was right all along about him, pointing out his flaws there where Tony saw qualities, hiding behind a cloak of darkness which he didn’t see as such.

And, well. Captain was all that had gone wrong with his plan of making the world a better place in his own terms.

That old popsicle just had to come out and say whatever he saw wrong with his plans, pointing out mistakes when Tony refused to see him, trying to make his see reason, something Tony hadn't done in the past ten years or so.

Captain freaking America was a pain in his ass. Screw language.

When this was all going to be over, Tony should’ve remembered to thank him for it.

 

  1. **All I need – Within Temptation _(Natasha Romanoff)_**



She felt his hands on her shiver, as if he was scared he was going to hurt her; and Natasha knew ‘scared’ didn’t even begin to cover it.

She kissed him, again and again, hiding inside his embrace, pretend she could actually still get hurt from something or someone, pretending she was just another woman in bed with the man she...

 

She woke up, all of a sudden.

Three o’clock in the morning, an empty bed and Bruce was still lost to her.

Natasha put on a brave face, day after day, because they had taught her that the mission was the only important thing, that she couldn’t let anything else distract her.

But behind the cloak of darkness of the night, when no one could see her, her dreams and nightmares remembered her what she had lost, what she couldn’t have. All because of the mission, because she had done what was necessary.

They had definitely taught her well.

 

  1. **Twilight – Vanessa Carlton _(Gamora)_**



Peter had pulled the trigger.

He had kept his promise, and Gamora was way too glad about the fact that he had just tried to kill her.

Somehow, she thought he wasn’t going to do it. But Peter had always had a way to impress her, to prove her wrong, to show her that he could understand when things got serious, and act consequently.

All was lost, now. Peter and the others, and her sister and her planet, and _all_ the planet, and everything because she couldn’t be as strong as Peter.

She should’ve let Thanos torture Nebula all he liked, let him kill her and go on to the next target, but she never should’ve revealed to him where the Soul Stone was.

She should’ve definitely been like Peter. More trusting, more confident. Should’ve removed that cloak of darkness from her mind which had prevented her from seeing that there actually was something Thanos loved, that she had been so blinded by her rage and her pain that she had always missed.

This was what she thought as she fell. And that she wished she could’ve reached the bottom of the abyss sooner.

 

  1. **La chanson de vieux amants – Jacques Brel _(Clint Barton)_**



Looking at his kids, he wondered if this hadn’t all been a mistake.

Come here to seek refuge, bringing a group of freaks just like him into his home.

Leaving in the first place, maybe, had been the worst mistake of all.

Laura understood. She always did. She smiled when Clint walked through the door and she smiled when he left, but he knew better than to trust her smiles.

When Loki had captivated his mind, when he had suffocated him under that cloak of darkness, he had risked losing everything in a way worse than death would’ve caused him, and back then he had promised to his wife that, one day, an end would’ve come to this.

Two years later, he was still looking for a way out and she was still smiling to him, cooking dinner for Iron Man and Captain America.

“You know I love you, right?” he asked her in a low voice, hoping the others weren’t going to hear.

“That’s the only reason why I haven’t kicked you all out.” she replied. And, then, another smile.

Clint was going to make his promise real. He was going to go back home one day and stay, just to see that smile every day and finally think it was real.

 

  1. **Everybody’s fool – Evanescence _(Steve Rogers/Tony Stark)_**



“Have you gone mad?”

It was a pretty poor expression on his part, but for the first time in the longest while Steve had lost his words.

Tony arched an eyebrow in his direction, spiteful.

“According to you I’ve always been mad, Captain. Once might say I'm sane now, and you’re the one who can't see things clearly.”

Steve looked at him intently, as if trying to understand.

“Tony, I know you feel guilty about Ultron, but these Accords are...”

“Don’t. Even.” the man stopped him, hissing. He closed his eyes, as if trying to calm down. When he opened them again, there was no rage in them. There was nothing at all, but a cloak of darkness Steve had never seen in them.

“Go save your Winter Soldier, Captain, if you must. One way or the other, I'm going to stop you from making this particular mistake.”

“I’ve never stopped your mistakes.” Steve rebutted promptly, getting closer and trying to tower over him, despite knowing that Stark was not one to be impressed like that.

“You should’ve.” Tony replied, bitter. He raised a hand, as to bring it to his face, but then he seemed to rethink it and lowered it. “May the best man win, Captain.”

And Steve wished the same, even though he didn’t know who the best man was.

For sure, not this Tony Stark.

 

  1. **On the horizon – Melanie C _(Bruce Banner)_**



Don’t wait too long, the Captain had said.

Bruce wished it could’ve been so easy.

Who was he even kidding? He saw the way Natasha acted, saw how it wasn’t just flirting. No matter how hard he had tried to deny it, he had miserably failed.

There was something real, there. Something he would’ve relished and nurtured, something he would’ve lived to its very end.

If only he could’ve.

The cloak of darkness he had lived under all these years now felt suffocating, and as he struggled to breathe and break free it reminded him why he couldn’t allow himself any slip, no matter how beautiful or tempting.

Natasha might’ve also played down the danger the Hulk represented, but Banner had always sworn he was never going to put others purposefully in danger, and he wasn’t about to risk anything happening to her.

This was his way of showing he cared. This was the reason behind his loneliness and his despair, but it was right just like this.

Natasha should’ve just let the sun stay up and forget all about him.

 

  1. **Incomplete – Backstreet Boys _(Bucky Barnes)_**



Years of torture, manipulation, slavery.

Years of blood and death, and a fog and a cloak of darkness that he couldn’t lift up from his mind.

And yet something inside of him had still found a glimpse of a memory, of a feeling, which had lead him to trust Steve all over again.

His eyes had recognized, his body too, his heart and his skin, and somehow he had been saved from the darkness.

The love in his Steve eyes was what had gotten him back from down there, and it was still the only thing preventing him from going completely mad in a world he didn’t understand anymore, in the skin of a man that wasn’t the Bucky Barnes he had once been.

But if Steve still recognized, if he was sure Bucky was still him, he was going to trust him. And to let himself see this new man through the eyes of the one he, despite everything, still loved.

 

  1. **Living on my own – Freddy Mercury _(Stephen Strange)_**



He had told the damn Iron Man.

He was going to let them die for the sake of the mission, no matter what was going to happen, he wasn’t going to risk saving them when there was so much at stake.

Stephen had been a selfish man all along, that was the first thing they had taught him, the first thing they had tried to eradicate from him.

The greater picture, eyes always on that.

Somehow, the old doctor was still there underneath his skin, with all his arrogance and all his selfishness, and he had to come out of his cloak of darkness to play with his actions, leading them to destruction.

Because there was no fooling himself, choosing to save them had been the most selfish thing he had ever done; refusing to spill their blood in exchange for the stone was going to doom them all, and Stephen was ready now.

He was going to pay the price for hid old self’s sins.

He just hope he was going to make the cut of those who were going to disappear.

 

  1. **Unpredictable – Skye Sweetnam _(Peter Parker)_**



He was so in over his head.

Mr. Stark always told him.

He should’ve stayed home, went back to Aunt May, waiting to find out what was about to happen just like everyone else.

He wasn’t an Avenger. He was never going to be, not with how idiotic he was.

It felt nice to see Mr. Stark face, right now. Nice to feel his arms supporting him, no matter how bad he was currently feeling, how weak, as if on the verging of just dissolving.

He wished he could’ve wiped the guilt off of the man’s face, tell him it wasn’t his fault, that it would’ve happened anyway, he had just gotten the front seat on the reason why he was disappearing.

There were so many things he wanted to say, and no time at all.

Peter caved to the cloak of darkness which had come to get him, relinquishing Mr. Stark and his whole life, relinquishing the idea of ever being a true hero.

 


End file.
